Saturday, August 3, 2013

Someone Keeps Buying Newsweek

Earlier today, IAC/Interactive reached a deal to sell Newsweek, which has been publishing since January as a digital-only version of the old magazine, to the owners of theInternational Business Times.

The announcement ends weeks of speculation about who might purchase what remains of the 80-year-old journalism brand, which was on the block for the second time in just three years.

Newsweek, the once-venerated weekly newsmagazine that at its height in the early '90s rivaled Time for readers and exercised tremendous influence on Washington politics, fell on hard times under the ownership of The Washington Post Company, and was sold to audio-equipment magnate Sidney Harman for a dollar in late 2010.

Harman subsequently entered a partnership with Washington Post Company board member and IAC chairman Barry Diller to merge Newsweek with IAC's Tina Brown-helmed digital-news company, The Daily Beast, but the merger was viewed as a failure. After Harman's death and the cessation of the print version of Newsweek at the end of 2012, Diller admitted in interviews that it had been a mistake to purchase the magazine and attempt to merge it with The Daily Beast in the first place.

I have no intention of buying Newsweek; when it is for sale and when the asking price hits about three grand, we'll do a fundraiser and see if we can make a go of it.

When I own Newsweek, I will put a stop to the endless cover stories about aging, dogs, and the brain. We live, we die, we can't change that and dogs think but not in the way that we want them to and yes, the brain is a mystery. Wow. Now, can we please move on?